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The improvised radio show

Mohmmed Fahmy, the egyptian-canadian journalist, who was among the three Al Jazeera journalists imprisoned by Egypt (links) spoke out about how they created a makeshift radio show as a way of coping with their imprisonment:

After the first month, Fahmy was transferred to a new section of the prison where he shared a cell with Greste and Baher. The other prisoners in this cellblock were all senior leaders in the deposed Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohammed Morsi. “We were moved to an area called ‘the shoebox.’ There were about 15 other people in adjacent cells. Our own cell was small. [Baher and Greste] had a bunk and I had a separate bed. We only got one hour outside our cell every day, but because we were together, we were really able to support each other.”

Along with his imprisoned colleagues, Fahmy said he ran an improvised nightly “radio show” by yelling through the bars of his cell to other prisoners in the same block. “Every night we did something called ‘The Al-Jazeera Live Show,’ like a news program. We’d take it really seriously and spend the whole day planning it. We talked about politics, had interviews, recited poetry. We were interviewing the other inmates from their cells, because these were Morsi’s former ministers imprisoned all around us.”

At one point the show went “off air” for three days after officers in charge of the cellblock ordered them to stop. “We stopped, but the Brotherhood guys were really defiant and said, ‘We’ll do the show.’ They didn’t do a very good job, but they kept it going, and a few days later we resumed doing it, too. (link)”